TOXICITY MAY AFFECT PREDICTABILITY OF EUTROPHICATION MODELS IN THE COASTAL SEA

Toxic substances in wastewaters that are released into the aquatic env ironment cause reduction of phytoplankton uptake up to 50 km away from the sources depending on the geometry of the coastal sea and the inte nsity of existing sources. This conclusion follows from an unusual app lication of the advection-diffusion-interaction equation to the transp ort of unknown toxic substances. The consequence is that if existing e utrophication models (without a toxicity submodel) reproduce phytoplan kton densities in the coastal sea, then probably they have been miscal ibrated. The problem could be solved by coupling transport of toxic su bstances to an eutrophication model given that results of uptake exper iments are available. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science B.V.